Mazda spokesperson Jacob Brown tells CarsDirect, which spotted the addition, that the 2017 CX-5 Grand Select is an attempt by Mazda USA to examine consumer tastes.

Grand Select, Brown says, “will be offered for a limited time and will test the waters for customer options preferences in the marketplace.”

Like the CX-5 Grand Touring, the $29,835 Grand Select is a very well-equipped, premium-aping compact crossover. Unlike the CX-5 Grand Touring, the Grand Select lacks forward collision warning, adaptive cruise, auto high beams, lane departure warning, and lane keeping assist. A few years down the increasingly autonomous road, those are the kinds of features that might be a real boon to resale.

Sure you wanna save $500?

The CX-5 Grand Select sneaks in under the $30K marker but still includes some advanced safety tech: blind spot monitoring and cross-traffic alert, for example. And because the Grand Select is essentially a CX-5 Grand Touring without a few enhanced safety features, there are still 19-inch wheels, leather seating, Bose audio, power driver’s seat, and a sunroof.Although it’s increasingly normal for auto writers to hop in and out of vehicles with steering wheels that turn by themselves, cars that periodically brake whether you want them to or not, and cruise control that slows behind dawdling traffic, consumers who haven’t driven a new car since they bought their first CX-5 in 2012 can be in for quite a shock.

With the 2017 CX-5 Grand Select, Mazda will be able to determine whether some of the consumers who want luxury content would rather not encounter any form of autonomous driving.

If Mazda is going to perform such a test, the CX-5 is the volume vehicle with which to do so.

Although Mazda’s company-wide volume remains unimpressive in the United States, the CX-5 is on track for its best year ever in 2017, continuing an unending growth streak for what is now the most popular Mazda. The current pace pegs U.S. CX-5 sales at 125,000 units in 2017, a 57-percent jump compared with 2013, the nameplate’s first full year. On a monthly basis, CX-5 sales have grown, year-over-year, in 43 of the last 52 months. 40 percent of the Mazdas sold in the United States in the first five months of 2017 were CX-5s.

As for other CX-5s, the basic 2017 CX-5 Sport starts at $24,985, including a $940 destination fee. The mid-grade Touring is $26,855. The Grand Touring is $30,335. All-wheel drive is a $1,300 option at each level. There are no manual transmissions.

[Image: Mazda]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.

“Select” is below Choice, which is below Prime. It’s not a very good appellation for a sub-model.
It’s only slightly better than “utility grade”: the scraped, salvaged and ground-up scraps and odds and ends that are used to make fast food hamburgers and pet food.

If i were buying an optioned up cx5, this would be attractive to me. Though the package to get all that nanny nonsense usually costs more than 500 to add… So maybe I’d just option up the level below that.

As far as resale goes, i suspect it would only hurt on dealer trade ins. I think we’re still early enough in the game that all these electric nannies are less than perfect. Dealers would probably argue they add value to the car, most people shopping for a used car probably wouldn’t specifically seek it out. After sampling them in a few Cadillacs and Lincolns, I’m dead set against getting them in the next car i buy.

After a friends minor 5 mph bump into a pole resulting in $4,000 worth of damages to his JEEP Grand Cherokee, of which $3,000 was the cost to replace the radar cruise control, lane assist and light sensor (all bundled into one $3K unit), I will never buy a vehicle with those features or look for a used vehicle specifically with that option.

If you want to trash on the Tesla who’s front window is thousands of dollars (and I most definitely like to trash on DeLorean Motor Company, er, Tesla) then you need to be aware of the replacement costs for these sensors which must be placed as far forward as possible on the vehicle to function properly. They will not be surviving many years of ownership.

“After a friends minor 5 mph bump into a pole resulting in $4,000 worth of damages to his JEEP Grand Cherokee, of which $3,000 was the cost to replace the radar cruise control, lane assist and light sensor (all bundled into one $3K unit), I will never buy a vehicle with those features or look for a used vehicle specifically with that option.”

^This. Unless there’s something seriously negative about the nannies (like being unable to turn them off or always returning to default every time the vehicle is restarted), most buyers won’t give much thought to high repair costs while under warranty.

$500 just isn’t enough of a discount on the top-tier CX-5 to lose what many will surely consider desirable options/features. OTOH, maybe there is something that Mazda isn’t telling us about that stuff if they think offering a model without the equipment at a token discount is a good idea.

It’s something I’d consider. Mazda caters to conscious drivers, so I can do without lane keep, lane watch, adaptive cruise, and auto high beams. But as I grow older, forward collision might be nice to have, but once that’s in place, the tech for all the other stuff is mostly there.

It’s an interesting experiment; I hope TTAC can follow up and report the results.

I’m willing to bet that the discounted insurance premiums of the Grand Touring with the full package of aids and safety features will more than make up for the extra $500 over the course of a few years.

My insurance offers discounts for features like ABS, blind spot monitoring, back up cameras, and I’d presume others like lane holding and automatic braking. I was asked about those at the time of enrollment but I don’t have those on my vehicles so I don’t see that discount on my bill.

At the very least I’d expect insurers to assess risk and resulting premiums not just on make and model but also trim level. One can reasonably hypothesize that buyer’s of higher trim levels with more safety tech will make fewer claims. As it is, drivers of cheaper vehicles tend to be involved with more collisions than those driving newer and more expensive vehicles.

Regarding the savings – if the average modern car buyer is financing for 60 months the insurance premium savings need only be $8/month to make up that additional expenditure on the higher trim level.